Marathon Viewing This Year's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the couch and demolish a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will undoubtedly notice lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for fans and a solid start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a fellow in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The truth is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher